West Byfleet Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Crushed backs and other celebrations May 12, 2012

I was fine until about half-an-hour ago but now I’m like Martin Sheen in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now. Alone with absolutely nothing on TV, pacing despite being declared medically unfit to stand, swigging a cheap rose I’d sniffily declared not to my taste at 6pm. In fifteen hours time Stoke kick-off against Bolton, a unlikely, but still very possible win for the latter and QPR are relegated. Unless QPR can get a point away at Man City. And that’s not going to happen.

Things couldn’t be worse: following medical advice I have spent the last two days lying flat in bed after having my spine crushed by a publican when Djibril Cissse scored a winner in our last Rangers game. Waiting months for a weekend of sunshine only to be told by the doctor to lie down indoors. And I never in my life believed my happiness would be relative to something that was happening in Stoke.

To compound matters I may just recover the ability to sit upright and walk just in time to watch the conclusion on television, sitting within arms reach of the publican, Lee Blewett in his pub The Bramley Inn.

In the past week the Man City – QPR game has become a matter of national debate. There is only one voice I’ve heard that entire time who has openly declared, with no hint of irony, they believe QPR will win: Lee Blewett.

It’s the kind of blind faith that has seen him travel all over the country full of vim only to witness in nine outings nine straight defeats and one solitary goal (compared to Chelsea’s six), so god knows what odds he is operating on for such a prediction, but despite all this evidence to the contrary, he will yet again experience the crushing disappointment that comes with confronting the odds with his hand on his crotch.

The tragic thing is this fixture and the need for Bolton not to win at Stoke coincides with the birthday party he’d organised for his partner.  Curious to how this would pan out I asked what the plans relating to football tomorrow, receiving the reply: “I am going to get her twatted tonight. Tomorrow is all about the footy’. Not a line I imagine we’ve seen oft used in the vaults of Mills & Boon.

Tomorrow one of us is going to need to watch the scores come in in a cage. I certainly don’t want him charging at me like an undersexed gorilla if Stoke or, god forbid, QPR score. The physio was amazed I’d been walking, driving and commuting into town after ligament strain he inflicted on my back. And it cost me fifty-five quid for he to tell me that. That’s the exact same sum I owe Blewett for the Chelsea away match he suggested we go to fortnight ago, all in the belief of a surprise result.

That finished 6-1 and he looked a broken man. Tomorrow the only man who may be broken is whoever is in reach at the final whistle and, with the state of my spine, I’ll be slowest out the blocks.